Me.hate.keyboard.
The next morning, the whole clan of Asakura was eating breakfast together when Kino announced something that shocked everyone.
"Yoh, you will be turning fourteen next month, won't you?" Without giving the boy as chance to reply, she continued to break the news. "I have decided that you must be choosing your shaman bride now."
He blinked, and laughed. "You're kidding. I'm barely out of my puberty stage!"
"I've never been more serious." His grandmother narrowed her eyes at him. "If you don't get as girl to nag at you, you will never become worthy enough to be the shaman king."
Yoh groaned. "Just be patient, Grandmother. I can become the Shaman King you had been dreaming of since the time that you still had not even given birth to Father."
"Your grandfather says that you're not taking the training seriously. You always trick him!" said the old woman, frowning. "Even Horo Horo is a worthless and irresponsible guardian!"
To this, the boy servant swallowed slowly. Horo Horo on the other hand, looked down on the floor, not commenting.
"If I didn't marry your grandfather, he wouldn't be a decent shaman himself!" continued the old woman angrily. To this, the old man inched subtly away from his wife.
"Therefore, I have decided that I would be the one to choose your wife for you." Kino nodded at everyone. "That's right. I already found the girl for my grandson."
Anna was sitting by the pool of water when Yoh approached her. "K-Kyouyama-san?"
She looked sat him blankly. "What do you want, Asakura-san?" she asked.
He rubbed the back of his head, not knowing how to start what he was about to say. "Um…I'm going to marry you, if that would be alright with you?"
"What?!!" she gasped. "Do you know what you're saying, Asakura-san?"
He sighed. "Um, actually, this was decided by my grandmother…" He began to narrate to her what happened in the breakfast table awhile ago.
Kino turned to Anna who was outside the house, meditating.
Horo Horo and Yoh nearly spitted out the food that they were eating.
"Her?" said the blue-haired boy, then turned to Yoh, who looked like he was going to faint right on the spot. "But you have just met her yesterday, Madam!"
"I know," said the old woman simply. "I like the way she hides her feelings."
"That's because she doesn't have any," muttered the Ainu boy.
Yoh looked sat his father for help, but he didn't look interested in involving himself in these matters.
"It's final," said the old woman. "My student will become your fiancée starting today. She will also handle your training from now on. Whatever training she thinks is best for my grandson, I will not interfere with."
Yoh sighed helplessly. "So you see, Kyouyama-san, I didn't have a choice."
"That must mean I don't have one too," she said. Her eyes looked sat him testily. "I wasn't intending to marry, especially someone like you. But you will be as Shaman king in the future, so I guess it won't turn out to be so bad after all." She stood up. "Did the sensei also say that I would handle your training from now on?"
He nodded meekly.
"Then get ready," she said, smirking. "This will be bloodiest training you'll ever have."
He gulped. He had this feeling that she meant it literally.
She turned to the spirit cowering behind Yoh. "And you, spirit!"
Amidamaru suddenly appeared, looking as frightened as his master. "Yes, Ma'm Anna?"
Without another word, she threw her prayer beads around him and dragged him away from Yoh.
"H-Hey, where are you taking Amidamaru?" yelled Yoh.
"Both of you will undergo separate training," she said, smirking. She was going to make him pay dearly for what he did to her in the brook. No one had ever seen her naked yet.
"Eighty one…down. Eighty two…down," counted Anna as Yoh did his push-ups under the scorching heat of the sun. "Eighty three…down."
Yoh looked up at her beggingly. "Can we take as break already, Anna?"
She narrowed her eyes sat him. "I said, don't call me by my first name!" She continued to count. "Fifty…down. Fifty one…down…"
"We're already in eighty three!" he complained.
"You pissed me off. Now pay the price," said Anna. "Hurry up before I decide to count back from one! You still have ninety nine more push-ups to go."
"Master Yoh, I brought you some refreshments!" announced Horo Horo as his little sister, Pirika, followed, bringing a tray of drinks.
Yoh was about to stand up when he saw the eyes of Anna following him. He managed to mumble a thank you before continuing on his exercises.
Anna turned to Horo Horo and took the drink meant for Yoh. She sipped it delicately then frowned. "Too much sugar. Throw it away."
"But that is how Master Yoh likes it!" protested the boy.
"Would you like your Master Yoh to get diabetes?" she shot back.
Pirika looked at Anna and her brother back sand forth. She still didn't know who Anna was.
He clenched his fists, then marched back into the house grumpily, followed by Pirika.
She sat back into the bench under the shade of a tree and looked at Amidamaru who was chained to the trunk of the tree. "You should be thankful that you're having it easy in here." She turned to Yoh, who was on his sixtieth push-up.
"T-The beads," he sputtered. "They're too tight!"
She raised a brow. "Oh, is it?" With that, she pulled the other end of the beads more. He yelled in pain.
"Get used to that," she told him. "You'll be in tighter situations than this when you become his main spirit once he becomes the Shaman king." She looked at Yoh. "You must be able to protect him at all cost."
He paused, pondering on her words.
Anna stood up. "Don't stop!" she snapped when Yoh's body fell on the ground with a thump.
"Ouch!!!!" yelled Yoh as his maid, Tamao, massaged his aching muscles that night.
"Oh, Master Yoh! Why are you letting that girl do this to you?" wailed the maid. Her hands rubbed his muscles carefully.
"Simply because he's my fiancé." Anna entered Yoh's room, looking not so pleased to catch him with as girl, looking oh-so-cozy. "Get out," she told Tamao matter-of-factly.
The girl's eyes widened in shock.
Yoh frowned. "Anna, I don't think that is the right way to tell her that-"
He became the target of her blazing eyes. "Are you going to object?"
He sweatdropped. "Um. You better get going, Tamao."
The girl grumpily left the room, but not without leaving Anna a glare. The itako merely shrugged.
She turned to him. "Your training schedule."
A piece of paper flew on the bed beside him. He grabbed it and read the contents. "Wait a minute…this is household chores!"
She nodded. "I already asked the permission of sensei if I can tell the maids to go on day-off every Tuesday so you can take over the household chores."
"B-But…" He read the piece of paper again. "Since when had doing the laundry and ironing become part of the training of a shaman?"
"Since I said so," she said coolly.
He sighed. "It says here too that in the afternoon, I have a regular 50 kilometer run while carrying weights around my body. Before the sun sets, I must give you one hundred fifty push-ups. At night, I will be the one to make dinner and will also wash the plates!" He looked at her in disbelief. "Do you want to kill me?"
"Obey first before you ask," she said, turning her back on him. "Goodnight. We will start tomorrow." She left the room.
Yoh sighed. "She's a sadist."
Amidamaru appeared. "No kidding." He peeked at his master's training schedule. "Why don't you just run away?"
The boy grinned. "Because I'm too lazy to even pack my things." He looked out at the window. "Besides, I want to befriend her."
"People like her do not have friends, Master Yoh," interrupted Horo Horo, coming into Yoh's room. He was the only one privileged to enter the room without permission from the elders. Aside from Anna, of course. "She eats friends for lunch." He patted the shoulder of his friend. "I feel your pain, friend. If there's only something I can do to share the pain you're bearing right now." He then collapsed into a merciless fit of laughter.
Amidamaru sighed. "It seems like you're teasing Master Yoh more than comforting him."
"That's exactly what I'm doing!" With that, he doubled over on the floor, laughing his heart out.
"Oh, she can't be that bad," said Yoh thoughtfully. "Only good people can see spirits."
Master Yoh," sighed the servant. "You still don't get the general rule of life, right?"
"What general rule?" asked Yoh sand his spirit at the same time.
"In the strictest rules of life, women are always the exception to the rules."
Amidamaru nodded solemnly. "True, true."
Yoh looked impressed. "You seem to know as lot about women."
"Oh yes," said Horo Horo, nodding. "Experience is the best teacher."
"So what sort of experiences did you have?" asked the familiar female voice.
All three heads turned to Anna, who was standing on the door, arms crossed in front of her chest. She walked into the room, forehead creased. "Do enlighten me."
Horo Horo flinched. "Umm…too many to mention?"
She smiled. "Is that so? Then it's time to put those 'too many to mention' theories into practice. What am I thinking of doing right now?"
He laughed nervously. "Murder is out of the topic, right?"
Yoh knew that smile. He saw that too many times already. "You're going to make him train with me?"
She nodded. "Sensei asked me to train Horo Horo too, because he is such a weak and flappable warrior which is unbecoming of the tribe he came from." Her eyes narrowed at the blue-haired servant. "You and Asakura will take turns in doing the household chores. You will train at the same time. Horo Horo shall start tomorrow too. Any questions?"
Vehement shakes of heads.
"Good." She threw Yoh as bottle and wordlessly left the room.
As soon as the door shut, Amidamaru and Horo Horo looked at the bottle she tossed Yoh. "Poison?" guessed the spirit.
Horo Horo sniffed the concoction. "No. It's a medicine. A painkiller, in fact."
"Painkiller?" echoed the innocent spirit. "Does she think that Master Yoh is a pain in her life, so through this, she's going to kill him?"
"No," said Horo Horo. "This is something that can cure muscle pains."
Yoh took the bottle and sniffed it too. Immediately, he stood up.
"Where are you going?" asked Horo Horo, puzzled.
"I'm going to thank her," he said before leaving the room.
"How did he know that it was from Ma'm Anna?" asked Amidamaru.
"Beats me," shrugged the blue-haired boy. "I would never imagine that the medicine is from her. People like her enjoy seeing suffering. Maybe Master Yoh is wrong. The Madam must be the one who asked Anna to give Master Yoh the medicine."
Anna was dressing up when she heard as knock on the door. She hugged her kimono then opened the door. It was Yoh. Grinning sheepishly, of course, as he always does.
"What do you want?" she asked evenly.
"I want to thank you for the medicine," he said.
"It belongs to sensei," she said nonchalantly.
"It doesn't," he said good-naturedly. "The ingredients of that medicine can only be found in Kanagawa, and only a few Shamans know how to make this."
He was smarter than she thought. He was right, but her eyes gave nothing away. "It was sensei who asked me to give it to you."
"She wouldn't," he said. "She promised not to interfere with your training, and I know her. You can kill me if you want, but she won't care, as long as it would mean that I would become the best shaman."
She was shocked by how easily he was able to block all her alibis. "Is that all you're going to say?"
He frowned. "I know that deep inside, you're a good person. Why do you keep on acting like that?"
"Like what?"
He sighed. "I want to be your friend."
She tore her eyes away from his face. "I don't need one."
"The way you speak, it seems to me that you need one more than ever," he said, giving her a pitying look.
She didn't like that one bit. "Alright, let's have a deal. If you prove yourself to be a worthy shaman, I will be your friend for as long as you want. But if you lose, you will have to give Amidamaru to me."
He frowned. "You don't understand what a friend is, do you? I don't use my friends to bet. But if that is the only way to show you what a friend is, then Amidamaru may understand me."
She started to close the door when he stopped her. "Goodnight, Anna."
"I told you not to call me by my first name!" she snapped.
"I call all my friends by their first names," he said casually, and then went back to his own room.
Her clutch on her kimono became tighter. "Damn you, Asakura Yoh. I don't need one more person to complicate my organized life. I don't want as friend."
She slammed the door, her heart heavier than usual.
tsauzuku
